


This Could Get Messy but You Don't Seem to Mind

by yuffiehighwind



Series: An Eternity in Cheese Country [13]
Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Abusive Relationship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-01
Updated: 2004-03-01
Packaged: 2017-11-18 09:20:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuffiehighwind/pseuds/yuffiehighwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Discord reflects on the men in her life, and the consequences of knowing them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Could Get Messy but You Don't Seem to Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a lyric from the song "Hands Clean" by Alanis Morissette.

Ares was fierce, his rage was hotter than any flame you knew, and yeah, you pissed him off like you were expecting a calm foottap and a nod every time. Instead you got pain. Lightning, or fire, or stone. Sometimes all three. Sometimes none but being cut off from him for weeks, months, years at a time. Sometimes nothing but a smoldering glare. And sometimes....fuck....sometimes, you'd get fucked raw by him, because that was how he expressed those feelings, through actions. Through war. Through pain and dirt and dust and godfuckmakeitstopjustpleasegodmakeitstop...

And still you went back for more. You couldn't bear to think he didn't need you somehow, sometime, in some way. You went back, and you went back, and you went back.

The times he turned away from you were worse than any physical punishment he could dole out.

You didn't stop going back until he stopped getting angry.

 

* * *

 

He was a nuisance, plain and simple. But you kept him around because Ares said so, and Ares kept him around because the kid gave good head. No, because families stuck together, through thick and thin, and nobody else wanted the brat, so Ares was stuck with him. You were stuck with him. He was yours, after all.

You didn't hate the brat, you just thought he was annoying. He was a nuisance. And it was your job to teach the brat manners, and smarts, and cunning. You didn't fail, per se, he just wouldn't listen. You started liking him when he stopped hanging around so much. Had to make an effort to get him to bound up to your door and rant and rave about some new thing, some new war, or new game to play. He stopped coming, and you wondered why, and wished you hadn't hit him so many times. Maybe that was it. And yet Ares hit him. Ares did worse things to him than ever to you. And he still clung on. You wondered sometimes why you both clung to Ares so much. Was it because he was stronger? Older? Wiser? The good looks? The charm? Or just the feeling of being used, abused. You were fucked up. The brat was fucked up too. You pushed it aside, that affection, that feeling of kinship, because then Ares would see you less. It was all about the brat. Even getting him angry was a chore. You loved and hated them both more than ever, then.

 

* * *

 

You could still remember what the punk looked like as a baby, and the thought would always return to your mind at terrible instances, like in the sack, for one thing. You could remember the forced smile on Aphrodite's face on the Big Day, and Cupid's frown, and Phobos' resigned shrug. Ares wasn't there. He was somewhere else, doing something, or someone. No, he was probably at war. No, he was surely fucking the brat. Maybe both. So you managed to visit and console - no, congratulate - the mother in the father's place. The punk had some semblance of shock-white hair even then. Some evidence of his vocation as Terror, surely. Unfortunately, he never much caught on to it. Pain was more the punk's forte.

Painful screechingly terrible annoying awfulness surpassing that of the brat's. Just as clever, though, and as desperate for approval, which made him an equal threat when he got older and the brat needed a replacement. So much time spent waiting to get back onto Ares' right hand side, and in steps a doppelganger of the lover - nay, fucktoy - missed. You both marveled at the similarity. You forced a snort and ignored the inkling of Times Re-Had and Mistakes Fixed. He was a threat. You hung the punk from a tree and left him to sort out the conflicting identities. Perhaps the brat was in there somewhere. Nyx had a funny bone.

So the thought would come back - image and all, tuft of white hair just faintly visible on the mewling infant's skull - you, naturally, associating the punk with babyhood. One hundred years did not make one mature. No, no, no. Several thousand had barely made yourself such. Though Ares' supposed eternity wasn't much of an improvement. Maybe wisdom didn't come with age. Maybe experience wasn't a teacher to those that could not be taught. The brat, for one. The punk, for another.

You always went for younger men (them being the only ones available) with Ares the single exception.

So here you are, trying to show the punk the ropes, trying not to throttle him when the next giggle escapes his lips (like with the brat, to an exact "T"), forgetting about mortality and relationships and humans and such. It's wartime, you're standing on a battlefield, and it's your job (still following Ares' orders?) to sow the seed of terrible awfulness - discord, pain, terror. Don't respond to those flirtatious glances. Office romances never work. Incest = bad. Much proof and lessons learned with Ares as dark, angry, leatherclad evidence. And maybe you can give yourself the liberty of laughing at some tasteless jokes (tasteless to a human, anyway, considering the bloody and fire-wracked circumstances), but no more than that. There's a tally somewhere, in the back of your mind, and you've broken the daily limit already. Yes, there's the baby image again. It doesn't last, because he actually scores some Death!Points - just keeping the balance of nature; it's a job - and you are unnaturally impressed, and he's dangerously close, and aw damn, no, this can't happen this can't happen this can't happen can't happen can't can't can't not again.

So. Baby face. Inoppurtune moment. Centuries your minor. Awfulterriblebadwrongwonderful sex. With the punk.

Embarassed by your weakness, you start craving death just a little too much and wam, there it is, problem solved with a warrior princess' sword. Ares, naturally, doesn't even flinch or bat an eyelash, or wouldn't have, at least, if he had been there. The punk looks mildly concerned, and maybe will even miss you. Maybe. Hopefully not, because the last thing you need in the afterlife (if Xena's got your head, his can't be far behind) is that dumbass following you around.

Maybe this death thing will be a good thing for you, after all.

 

 

_Spoke too soon..._


End file.
